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Colo. governor admits drugs, nude selfies, more

Gov. John Hickenlooper’s new book is filled with candid moments and serves as his introduction to the nation amid the 2016 election.

Unbeknown to most, John Hickenlooper and his wife, Helen Thorpe, met with a therapist once a week as he served as mayor of Denver and campaigned for governor in 2010.

“The way she saw it, when my father died, half my heart cauterized; and, she said, while the half that was left was wonderful and lovely, it simply didn’t pump all of the emotion sometimes needed,” he writes.

The admission appears in the opening chapter of Hickenlooper’s new memoir, “The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics” — one of many candid moments the 64-year-old Colorado governor details in a book that serves as his introduction to the nation amid the 2016 election.

Hickenlooper recounts the first time he smoked pot at age 16. And his attempt to grow marijuana outside his bedroom window in suburban Pennsylvania. His love-sick depression as a freshman at Wesleyan University and the lithium capsules he needed to survive final exams. And the time in college he “got a little high” and took a nude self-portrait in a bathtub.

Read more from our partners at The Denver Post
- including the surprising person he took to see the X-rated movie “Deep Throat.”